Useful Information not related to today's game giveaway

If you have a problem running today's game you can find help in the FAQ's thread HERE

I've updated the games section that used to be posted with the game giveawayoftheday review. The thread is now called 'Weekly round up of game deals', formerly the games section of the weekly reviews. You can find the new thread (which I've posted in the sticky section of the game discussion forums to make it easier to find if you are perusing the game discussion forums) HERE.

If the latest game giveaway doesn't appeal, you may find other games either free or for less than the price of a cup of coffee via the 'Weekly Roundup of Game Deals' thread HERE or Delenns giveaway thread HERE.

The free game over on Origin is now Siberia II. It is a third-person puzzle-solving game. Stylistically identical to the first Syberia, Syberia II improves upon the first game by introducing more realistic character animation. The game includes a recap of the first chapter, so does not require the player to have experienced the first game.. You can get it HERE. Please note that you do require the Origin game platform to be able to download and install the game.

You will also find lots of deals over on Green Man Gaming, plus Big Fish Games usually have 70% off the first game you buy from them, and they also have other deals occasionally. Alawar, Gamehouse and Playrix Entertainment have free games available (usually online versions) and other game houses such as the AAA distributors Ubisoft and Origin always have some games on sale. I've updated the Weekly roundup of game deals HERE to include a large list of other sites where you can find games on sale ( e.g. Origin, uPlay, GreenManGaming etc, as well as links to free online games plus gaming news sites such as Rock Paper Shotgun and Game Seek, and included a list of free to play Massive Multiplayer games such as World of Tanks, World of Warships (both very popular), Liberators and Allegiance to name a few. For more details please go to the Weekly roundup of game deals over in the game discussion sticky section HERE.

Important time limited information:

⦁ See Delenns post about other free Steam keys over in the giveaway game discussion forums HERE, she often posts information about free Steam keys and other games, so it's worth checking out.
⦁ If you've purchased games from Dot.emu the site will be permanently closing on 1st June 2017, so make sure you've downloaded a copy of each game you purchased from them as from that date onward the domain will no longer be accessible. To download your games go to the website HERE and login. Then to the top right of the screen you should see your profile. Select My Games and download each one. To ensure you have copies make backups of each game. During installation you should find the games executable files in the AppData folder/Local/Temp folder. Though it may be under a coded name. Once you're sure you've found the correct file, copy it then rename the copied file to the name of game you are installing, then back it up. If you find it difficult to accomplish this, an already installed version should be okay. whenever you need to re-install it all you need to do is copy and paste the whole folder to wherever you keep your games, then create a desktop shortcut. If you prefer shortcuts in the Start menu, there's a simple way to accomplish this, just Google the process. :). All games from DOT.Emu are DRM free, so you should be able to back up working copies of all games purchased; (thanks for the heads up Delenn).

There are 955 games on sale over on Steam at the moment (this tends to change daily), with up to 91% off. Game prices range from as little as £0.15p (most of these cheap games are actually cheaper in the UK than the US, so if you are a US citizen and have a UK friend, get them to buy the game for you). There are almost 750 games and dlc less than $1 and almost 850 for less than £1. You can find all of the deals HERE

If you spend more than $4 in the Indie Gala store you'll also get a free copy of TABLE TOP RACING: WORLD TOUR worth £10.99/$14.99, plus there are loads more deals with excellent discounts of up to 92% that you'll find HERE. They have a Gameseekers game on offer each weekend; the price starts at $0.01 and increasing as more community members purchase it. Most games featured usually retail for around $10.

The Humble Store features loads of discounted games (usually Steam codes) and the latest bundles have a great selection of games If you subscribe to the Humble Monthly, which costs $12 a month (or less if you choose various monthly plans) you not only get a large collection of decent Steam games you will also get for the first month of the subscription a recently released AAA game, the name of which changes monthly. The great thing is, you can cancel at any time, so only need to receive the first bundle of games. I personally haven't bothered, but only because I usually have already purchased most of the games included in the monthly bundle. The usual savings on the games you get are around 90%, not counting the introductory offer. There's also lots of games on sale over on the Bundle Stars and Indie Game Stand (IGS).

Giveaway Team Contact and Moderation policy:

Since the introduction of the VPN blocker and the Captcha requirement before you can post in the comments, the number of spam and troll comments have been reduced significantly. Assuming this continues to improve, I will be removing this section from this review to cut down on the length of the review. :) The following is continued from the first paragraph at the beginning of this review This is a site that gives free games away, so it was quite shocking to see the number of negative and sometimes inappropriate comments that were being posted here, especially when they were not even related to the actual game that we were receiving. I always though getting something for free was a privilege/perk/treat/ and deserves at least some thanks or gratitude and still cannot understand why we got so many negative comments that could have possibly turned away potential developers who would otherwise have given the project their games. Then again, having researched the mentality of trolls and spammers I've come to understand some aspects of the problem and because of that have chosen to totally ignore most comments from such people. Of course we have freedom of speech, but as mentioned in my review above, there are rules to posting in this comments section; even a free society requires rules and regulations to run properly, so please bear this in mind when posting a comment.

I believe if we get lots of decent feedback about the games we get here, more developers would be happy to give away their games. Seeing lots of complaints (and spam) instead of feedback about the giveaways will not persuade other developers to give their creations away for free, especially when they may have spent thousands of hours working on their creation. So please bear this in mind when posting your comments. Any comment not about the game for example complaints, or if deemed unfriendly or inappropriate, will be deleted (usually with no explanation) or added to the spam folder, which automatically black lists the IP address you used. Although I have enjoyed responding to many of those comments in the past, I will no longer waste my time answering comments from community members who should have read the moderation policy. One or two word replies will also be treated as spam.

Negative feedback about the games given away will always be welcomed because they can also be very constructive for developers, however, complaining about the way the site is operating or problems about downloading or installing the games or about Steam keys not received should be directed to the giveawayoftheday team via the contact form (with evidence of completed tasks, the name and email you used to enter the competition, or giveaway). I've linked to the contact form HERE; alternatively, if the problem is game related and it is late in the day (I can't moderate 24 hours a day), please also post your issue in the forums where you may get a response from the community. All games given away here have been thoroughly checked using several anti malware suites to ensure a safe download and in the 10 plus years this site has been operating, there has never been a game infected with malware. If your security software flags an issue, it's probably the Themida code that is used to protect the game from hackers or sometimes the non invasive adware that MPC games use. Themida code can also be used to hide malware, so some security software's will automatically block anything with Themida code, even if it's absolutely safe to install. also other computer configurations (i.e. the way you have your computer set up) may have blocked the install. Often, such problems are related to your computers set up. i.e. your security may block the installation (for example quite a few game giveaways I've installed have been blocked by my copy of Zemana Anti-malware suite) Also please read the moderation policy which can be found HERE and if you do have a problem please check the FAQ's thread HERE. Thank you for reading.

FREE game offer from the moderator in exchange for quality feedback:

I've posted a list of those who have won a key either for posting a decent comment about the game being given away, or posting consistently on a weekly basis. Here is the up to date list of winners. I still haven't sent out any games because I was hoping to do it all in one go, but some winner has still not responded, so will try to send out the keys by the end of this weekend. Check your emails for your keys soon. :) Everyone who has chosen a game will get their first choice so far. I've recently added more games to the list and am slowly adding video of game play for each game to give you an opportunity to see what the game play is like; so, if you've already chosen a key, you are welcome to change it if you wish before I send the keys out. Things have been extremely manic for weeks now which is another reason for the delay in sending out keys. Sorry for the recent delay. I did promise to send out keys at the end of last weekend, or a the very least by Monday 27th March, unfortunately I received two pieces of very bad news, concerning deaths in the family, so wasn't really in any frame of mind to keep that promise, however I will endevour to get those keys out to those who have already chosen their games as soon as I'm up to it.

You'll find the list of over 300 Steam games in the forums HERE and will be adding more as time permits over the coming weeks. I will assume if you don't reply within a few weeks you aren't bothered about a key. Please post your preferences (list at least 3 games in order of preference via the link above, thank you. Happy gaming).

Depending on the quality of the feedback, I may choose to award games to more community members for each game given away, 'at my discretion'. The feedback must be about the game, and it must include a couple of paragraphs of feedback following the guidelines I've posted in the suggestions section of my review. i.e. your opinion of the game, what you liked and/or disliked plus suggestions for improvement. If you choose a game that is very cheap I may give you a second game; so, when choosing from the list I provide, please list more than one choice. If a game is chosen by more than one community member and only one key is available the key will go to the one I deem the most useful. I do have multiple keys for quite a lot of the games I've listed, so, don't be put off if you see someone else has chosen the game you want. I haven't indicated any of the games I have multiple keys for so do list your preferred game sin the order you'd like them, thank you. (I do own at least three community members a game from the previous giveaways that I posted several months ago. I'd totally forgotten about those. I do have a document with their names on, so they will get a game from the original list when I find the document (I'm extremely disorganized); or they can peruse the new list and choose something different. Just post a comment over in the forums in the appropriate thread. If you do post feedback with a view to getting one of the games and think you have covered the requirements, you don't have to do anything until I announce the winners the following week.

Please remember, this comments section is mainly for feedback about today's game giveaway. If you're not sure, read the moderation policy, which you can see HERE

That would be cool. I've not played it much recently. Used to play it with my daughter a l;ot, but not since last year. It's almost like playing a single player game, tohugh there are sections where you do need to join in with others to beat certain dungeons, but usually there are people waiting at those points. There have been additions to the game over the last three years for example you can challenge individual players to battle that gain you certain things if you win, but you can decline these. I've never had any one challenge me yet. There are also area's that you can visit, that are specific to multiplayer pvp etc but I've never gone to those, preferring the single player aspect of the game, usually just wandering around collecting things and battling the easier enemies. I have two accounts, one of which y daughter now uses, and have probably accumulated over 2000 hours of game time since the game was released, but I've still never got past level 47 with my characters. you can have up to 8 concurrent characters and even more if you purchase a particular expansion from the crown store.

If you do find time to play together I can give you lots of items (though most you may not be able to use for a while until your character has levels up a few times) as I have a lot stored in my bank and carry a lot of items most of the time. You can increase your carrying capacity by purchasing (using free in game gold) extra carrying space and extra bank space. I think you start off with 40 in your sack and 40 in the bank. I can now carry 170 and store around the same in the bank, both of which are usually almost full with armour, weapons and other items of use.

p.s. As with all elder Scrolls games, there is an introductory chapter that is basically linear and totally single player and usually takes up to half an hour (or slightly longer depending on your game play) to complete before you can join friends and explore the regions dedicated to the covenant you join. It's useful to check all the various containers and chest while you travel through this region as there are items such as lock picks that are very useful when you start the game proper. I can give you some lock picks as I have plenty of them, but I would advise checking those thins. Most items you find generally are useful in creating other more useful stuff once you start the game proper and enable you to make potions that can enhance game play temporarily as well as crafting weapons and armour. If you haven't formed any characters yet. I'm playing a character that is in the Daggerfall Covenant. To play as a small team you do have to be in the same covenant and the same server. I use the European server. When fighting in a dungeon where multiple players are required it is advantageous for the lowest level to be leader as the enemies are locked to the leaders level, so if I played with a low level character it would be easier for us to beat the dungeon. This enables the lower character top gain experience quicker and build up their character. There are also certain quests that involve finding things that then give you extra upgrades. We can talk about those when we set a time to play together. Should be fun. Personally I prefer to play single player or in a small team of people I already know. That way we can talk on Team Speak and play as friends.

I rarely play multiplayer games, but The Elder Scrolls Online is so user friendly and near to what the single player games are that I've thoroughly enjoyed playing it most of the time. I do play in a more grinding style, preferring to explore virtually every nook an cranny, and picking up everything I can carry. Most items you pick up can be sold for in game gold and then used to buy other more useful items. That said, I'm always happy to play other styles if you don't like grinding.